A fraternity chapter at University of North Dakota has been placed on limited operations pending a police investigation into the alleged assault and taunting of a gay man over his sexual orientation.
The alleged incident happened last weekend at the Lambda Chi Alpha house in Grand Forks, KSL reports.
“I was horrified,” Kim Winnegge, who is openly gay, said to ABC News. The alleged assault on the young man “struck a chord with me,” she added.
I was horrified. When I read that he was choked, when I read that he was sobbing, it struck a chord with me.
Winnegge’s comments are in reference to one man’s claims about what happened outside the fraternity house early Sunday morning.
School president Robert Kelly said on Wednesday that Grand Forks and The University of North Dakota police departments are investigating. No arrests have been made at this time.
In a letter to UND students, Kelley writes that he is deeply concerned about the incident. “I want to be very clear: violent behavior of this nature is not tolerated at UND,” he wrote.
I want to be very clear: violent behavior of this nature is not tolerated at UND. Any student or student organization found to have violated the UND Code of Student Life will be subject to disciplinary action.
On Wednesday, the national headquarters in Indianapolis for Lambda Chi Alpha restricted UND’s Epsilon-Zeta chapter from all formal activities. While “there isn’t any sufficient information to support the claims, we are working in partnership with the university and local law enforcement to ensure an immediate and thorough investigation is completed,” said Nick Zuniga, the national fraternity’s director of chapter services, in a statement.
We take this alleged incident extremely seriously, and although there isn’t any sufficient information to support the claims, we are working in partnership with the university and local law enforcement to ensure an immediate and thorough investigation is completed.
Zuniga said that Lambda Chi Alpha is “an inclusive organization that welcomes young men of any ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or nationality.” He said the fraternity celebrates diversity and has a zero tolerance policy for discrimination.
In other, and more positive, news concerning the LGBT community, the Boy Scouts voted to end the ban on gay scout leaders in July.
